‘Pearce Sisters’ wins Cartoon d’Or

Aardman pic takes European shorts contest

SAN SEBASTIAN — Luis Cook’s “The Pearce Sisters” won Europe’s Cartoon d’Or at the 18th Cartoon Forum, which wrapped Saturday in Girona, north of Barcelona.

Plaudit is awarded by the European Association of Animation Film for best European short film of the year. Competish is restricted to winners from one of Cartoon’s 10 partner festivals.

Produced by Brit animation house Aardman Animation, “Sisters” turns on a couple of old spinsters living a despondent existence on a remote strip of coast. One day, the sea washes up a half drowned and handsome man, whom they try to revive and then captivate.

The other four finalists from 27 candidates were: Tomek Ducki’s “Life Line” from Hungary, Suzie Templeton’s “Peter & the Wolf” from the U.K., Ami Lindholm’s “The Irresistible Smile” from Finland, and Daniel Gray and Tom Brown’s “t.o.m,” again from the U.K.

Sixty projects were presented at this year’s Cartoon Forum. According to organizers’ data, a third of the projects emerged from the Forum with their financing almost closed.

Some 15% of the projects presented at the Forum came with proposals for vidgame or other spinoffs.

“New platforms are changing not only projects’ design but content. It’s a real new opportunity for creativity,” said Cartoon secretary general Marc Vandeweyer.

“Animation is the audiovisual product with biggest distribution possibilities. Financing, however, continues to be the main problem that the sector faces,” added Vandeweyer.

The Cartoon Forum is organized by Cartoon with the support of the E.U.’s MEDIA Program. Event ran September 19-22.